Page 19 of When Monsters Fight
“I’ll explain once we get to the gate.”
“You lead, and we can fly,” Kabiel said.
“You could, but I would advise saving your energy for the sixth circle. Let me carry you.” He vanished and a moment later appeared in his serpent form a few feet away from us. He was an impressive beast, with shimmering obsidian scales and a body that sat over five feet off the ground and goodness only knew how long.
“You may mount me,” he said.
I shrugged my pack off and held it out to Jilyana. “Do you want to use it to hold the relics? It’ll mean keeping hold of my supplies.”
“It’s the least I can do,” she said.
I waited for her to ask about Lucifer, but she didn’t. I’d have to clear the air with her later.
We quickly made the transfer before Gabriel flew me up onto Thanatos’s back. We settled in a straddle position, putting me between Gabriel’s thighs, and I was surprised at how natural it felt to be sitting so intimately with the celestial.
Jilyana dithered below us.
“What is it?” Gabriel called out. “Are you afraid?”
“No, I just…I can’t seem to teleport. I tried earlier when Thanatos leapt out of the pit, but it didn’t work then either.”
“Come.” Asbeel held out his arms to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, Jilyana stepped into them. He flew up and landed somewhere behind us. The other watchers followed.
Kabiel took a spot in front of us but didn’t straddle the serpent. Instead, he crouched, spider legs holding on to the creature’s scaly body.
“Hold on,” Thanatos said.
The next moment, the world around us disintegrated into a blur.
We were moving so fast it was impossible for my eyes to track the terrain without feeling nauseous, so I tucked in my chin and leaned into Gabriel, focusing on the solid form of his body around me. With his inner thighs pressed to my hips, his arms around my waist, and his heat beating against my back, the effects of the rapid motion soon ebbed, allowing me to sink into myself as the rolling nausea in my belly dissipated.
I was all right.
“Almost there,” Thanatos said. “Just a little way?—”
Our ride came to a jarring halt that yanked me out of Gabriel’s arms and flung me into the air. My scream lodgedin my throat, eyes flying wide in shock as the sky hurtled toward me.
“Rue!” Gabriel grabbed me, enveloping me in the thunderous beat of his wings. I scrambled to get a hold of him, wrapping my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I have you.”
My pulse fluttered in my throat like a frightened moth, making it momentarily impossible to speak, and when I did manage to push out my words, they sounded reedy and strained. “What happened?” I pulled my head from the crook of his shoulder, eyes squinted against the gusts of wind his wings were forcing down on me. “Gabriel?”
Bellows of shock filled the air, and the collective beat of wings surrounded us. I spotted Kabiel with Jilyana in his arms and Asbeel close behind them.
Where were the other three? I twisted in Gabriel’s arms, eyes watering as I searched the sky, but movement below drew my attention to Thanatos, where the reason for our abrupt halt and involuntary flight had its jaws wrapped around our godly guide.
The attacker was also a serpent, but larger than Thanatos with spines on its back and a row of black eyes running down its snout. Thanatos whipped back and forth, attempting to be free, but the creature held fast, biting down so that blood welled from the punctures that its teeth had made in the god’s armored hide.
The land here was no longer rocky, and a huge hole was visible in the earth several feet from the fight.
Had the thing come out of that? “We have to help him!”
“We can’t risk your life,” Jilyana said. “We must put the relic first. We can’t afford to die here.”
The relicwasour priority, but this god had helped us,and now he was in danger. “If we walk away now, then we don’t deserve to live.”
“This isn’t our fight,” Jilyana said.
“You’re right,” Gabriel said to her. “So let’s make it our fight.” He pulled my bat free of the pack Jilyana was holding. “There’s a ledge over there where Rue and Jilyana will be safe. What do you say, Kabiel? Fancy taking your newly evolved bodies for a test run?”
